Felisa Rincón De Gautier Museum

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Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er Muse­um. Click on image to see it larger

Last Fri­day the 13th I once again vis­it­ed a unique attrac­tion in Puer­to Rico. This time my wife and I vis­it­ed the Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er Muse­um on the cor­ner of Clara Lair and “Cale­ta de San Juan” in Old San Juan. The place is a well deserved shrine to a lady who’s sense of ser­vice, hon­esty and all around com­mit­ment to the well­be­ing of her peo­ple ele­vat­ed the bar so high that most politi­cians today can only dream of reach­ing it.

But Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er was always adamant that the muse­um should not be a place where the peo­ple could see her old relics, but alive and dynam­ic. That’s why the Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er Foun­da­tion (the enti­ty that’s actu­al­ly in charge of the muse­um) offers con­fer­ences and sem­i­nars, con­ducts inves­ti­ga­tions and cel­e­brates all kinds of events to fos­ter the bet­ter­ment of pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion in all of Puer­to Rico’s municipalities.

“Doña Fela” (as most peo­ple called her in Puer­to Rico) was born on Jan­u­ary 9, 1897 in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Cei­ba, a small town on the east­ern coast of Puer­to Rico. She was the old­est of 9 sib­lings. Her father, Enrique Rincón, was a lawyer and her moth­er Rita Mar­rero was a school teacher.

At the age of twelve young Felisa was forced to aban­don school in the 10th grade and help her father in the upbring­ing of her eight broth­ers and sis­ters, when her moth­er unex­pect­ed­ly passed away while giv­ing birth to her youngest sister.

The muse­um is a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion for stu­dent groups from all over Puer­to Rico as well as tourist groups from all over the world.

Felisa Rincón de Gautier

Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er was major of San Juan for 22 years (which is prob­a­bly a record in itself for the City). But one small fact that many peo­ple don’t know (or at least I did­n’t know) is that she was nev­er elect­ed by pop­u­lar vote. That’s right! Dur­ing the time that Rincón was major the munic­i­pal­i­ty of San Juan was the only one in Puer­to Rico that did­n’t elect its own major. Instead, the job was an appoint­ed posi­tion grant­ed by the Com­mis­sion­ers Board.

In her ear­ly years “Doña Fela” did­n’t seem to be inter­est­ed in climb­ing the Island’s polit­i­cal ranks. Instead she was more of a foot sol­dier who was always look­ing for ways to improve the lives of her fel­low citizens.

When she arrived in San Juan she estab­lished a high fash­ion store in front of Plaza de Armas called “Felisa’s Style Shop”, where the super­mar­ket is today. She also opened a flower shop near­by that was oper­at­ed by one of her sisters.

In 1932, when women were grant­ed the right to vote, she imme­di­ate­ly reg­is­tered and cast her vote. She was also a mem­ber of the Lib­er­al Par­ty, presided by Anto­nio R. Barceló, father to Car­los Romero Barceló, who would fol­low Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er as major of San Juan and even­tu­al­ly become Gov­er­nor of Puer­to Rico.

In 1938, when the Lib­er­al Par­ty was falling apart, “Doña Fela” worked side by side with Luis Muñoz Marín (who would lat­er become Gov­er­nor) col­lect­ing sig­na­tures to reg­is­ter the Pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. Once again she was offered a polit­i­cal posi­tion and she declined. She just want­ed to help the citizenry.

In 1940 she mar­ried Jenaro A. Gau­ti­er, a lawyer who was also instru­men­tal in reg­is­ter­ing the Pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in Puer­to Rico.

There are hun­dreds of awards adorn­ing her stair­case. Click on image to see it larger.

But on Octo­ber 14, 1943 some­thing hap­pened in Puer­to Rico that changed the polit­i­cal future of Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er for­ev­er. Hur­ri­cane San Cal­ix­to was head­ed towards the Island and “Doña Fela’s” neigh­bors —know­ing that she had all the right polit­i­cal con­nec­tions— asked her to help them find shel­ter for the storm.

Rin­con prompt­ly con­tact­ed gov­ern­ment offi­cials try­ing to find shel­ter for her fel­low cit­i­zens. But the answer was a polite no. She was told that those things were tak­en care of “after the fact”. “Doña Fela” was so irri­tat­ed by the lev­el of incom­pe­tence demon­strat­ed by the gov­ern­ment that she broke the locks to Luis Muñoz Rivera School, on Manuel Fer­nán­dez Jun­cos Ave. and told the peo­ple to weath­er the storm there.

But Rincón did­n’t stop there. She went home, bought some gro­ceries, col­lect­ed some of her own clothes, and that of her hus­band and broth­ers, and donat­ed it to the refugees at Luis Muñoz Rivera School.

That day she decid­ed that she would assume a more active role in government.

In 1946 Rober­to Sánchez Vilel­la (who would lat­er become the sec­ond gov­er­nor of Puer­to Rico under the Pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty) resigned his post as Major of San Juan after only two years in the posi­tion and Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er was named City Man­ag­er of San Juan.

More awards all the way to the roof ter­race. Click on image to see it larger.

Just to set the record straight, nei­ther Rober­to Sanchez Vilel­la nor Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er were actu­al­ly majors of San Juan. Instead they were “City Man­agers”. In those days the peo­ple of San Juan would elect a “Com­mis­sion­ers Board” who in turn would name a “City Man­ag­er”. It was­n’t until 1968, when Car­los Romero Barceló was elect­ed, that the posi­tion was offi­cial­ly changed to Major Of San Juan and the “Com­mis­sion­ers Board” became the Munic­i­pal Assem­bly. Today the Munic­i­pal Assem­bly is actu­al­ly called the Munic­i­pal Legislature.

But stop any­one on the street in Old San Juan and ask who “Doña Fela” was and the uni­ver­sal answer will be “la alcalde­sa de San Juan” (THE major of San Juan). Some­times terms don’t real­ly matter.

Her old guest room holds pho­tos of her many accom­plish­ments. Click on image to see it larger.

Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er was a may­or for the his­to­ry books. She was the first female major of a cap­i­tal city in the New World. Not only in Puer­to Rico, but from Alas­ka to Patagonia.

She imme­di­ate­ly sur­round­ed her­self with the most com­pe­tent peo­ple that she could find and start­ed lay­ing the ground­work to trans­form San Juan from one of the poor­est cap­i­tals in the world to one of the most pro­gres­sive cities in the hemisphere.

Of course, the pur­pose of this post isn’t to con­dense the life of such an illus­tri­ous fig­ure into a cou­ple of thou­sand char­ac­ters. But just to give you a small sam­ple, here are some of “Doña Fela’s” great­est accomplishments:

• She estab­lished the “escue­las mater­nales” which John F. Kennedy saw dur­ing his vis­it to Puer­to Rico in 1961, rebrand­ed as “Head Start”, and estab­lished through­out the Unit­ed States dur­ing his short-lived presidency.
• She estab­lished 9 Diag­nos­tic and Treat­ment Centers
• She closed down the old Munic­i­pal Hos­pi­tal on stop 22 in San­turce and relo­cat­ed it to what today is the Island’s much larg­er Med­ical Cen­ter (Cen­tro Médico).
• She estab­lished the “Clin­i­ca Anti­il­las”, a facil­i­ty for the ter­mi­nal­ly ill.
• She built the Hiram Bithorn Base­ball Sta­di­um on FD Roo­sevelt Ave.
• She left the design for the Rober­to Clement Coliseum
• She built 4 avenues, name­ly: Rober­to H. Todd, Fidal­go Díaz, Améri­co Miran­da and Gándara.
• She paved all the may­or streets and avenues in San Juan.
• She cleaned all the san­i­tary sew­er systems
• She cleaned all the rain­wa­ter systems
• She sup­plied all san­i­ta­tion work­ers with vehi­cles, equip­ment, uni­forms and gloves. Her pol­i­cy was always that San Juan would shine if its peo­ple shined.
• She took spe­cial care of the city’s home­less population
• She built the first munic­i­pal park­ing in the old city (known to every­one in the city as “El Park­ing De Doña Fela”) as well as the build­ing for the fed­er­al court and a small post office next door.
• She built the “pid­geon’s park” (Par­que de las Palo­mas) next to Capil­la Del Cristo at the very end of Cristo Street.
• She built the Río Piedras Farmer’s Market
• She rebuilt the San­turce Farmer’s Market
• She rebuilt Con­va­les­cence Square in Old San Juan
• And much, much more

On July 1, 1951 the neigh­bor­ing munic­i­pal­i­ty of Río Piedras was annexed to San Juan and Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er found her­self major of two cities com­bined into one.

Among the many dis­tinc­tions and awards that Felisa Rincón received dur­ing her life­time are the following:

• She received 11 hon­orary doc­tor­ate degrees from uni­ver­si­ties in Puer­to Rico and the Unit­ed States
• The city of San Juan received the “All-Amer­i­can City Award”, when it was select­ed as one of the clean­est cities in the nation in 1951.
• The Venezue­lan medal of Honor
• The Simon Boli­var Award
• In 1954 the Amer­i­can Wom­an’s Union of New York select­ed her “Woman of the Americas”.

It’s fun­ny that I start­ed out to cov­er the Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er Muse­um and I end­ed up writ­ing about her. But when you go there you’ll under­stand why. They just don’t make politi­cians like “Doña Fela” anymore.

“Doña Fela’s” fam­i­ly pho­tos. Click on image to see it larger.

When you enter the muse­um you go through what used to be her liv­ing room. There you’ll see most of here per­son­al mem­o­ra­bil­ia like pho­tos form her child­hood days, her rel­a­tives and the many books that were print­ed dur­ing her tenure.

The keys to 113 cities around the world. Click on image to see it larger

Then you reach what used to be her din­ing area. There you have the admin­is­tra­tive area to the left, an inte­ri­or patio to the front and a stair­case to the right with hun­dreds (and I do mean hun­dreds) of awards. You’ll also see a glass case with the 113 keys that “Doña Fela” was award­ed from cities all around the world, and a four-foot stat­ue of Saint John.

Din­ing Room. Click Image to see it larger.

On the sec­ond floor there are four rooms con­tain­ing “Doña Fela’s” orig­i­nal fur­ni­ture, The first one to the left of the stair­case has her din­ing room fur­ni­ture as well as all the medals, com­mem­o­ra­tive coins, tro­phies and memen­tos that she received from dig­ni­taries and con­stituents. There’s also her walk­ing cane, some of her Span­ish fans and the flags that cov­ered her casket.

Liv­ing room with Span­ish fan col­lec­tion. Click on image to see it larger.

Right next to the din­ing room is a sec­ond room with “Doña Fela’s” liv­ing room fur­ni­ture and her Span­ish fan col­lec­tion. There is also an oil paint­ing by Lajos Markus that I can only describe as “regal”.

Imme­di­ate­ly to the right is a third room with her bed­room fur­ni­ture, a cou­ple of man­nequins hold­ing two of her orig­i­nal dress­es and a “cabezu­do” of her like­ness made for the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fiestas.

A por­trait paint­ing by Lajos Markus. Click on image to see it larger

Final­ly, there’s an addi­tion­al room (that used to be the guest room) that holds pic­tures and infor­ma­tion of all the things that were done dur­ing here 22 years in office.

When you come to the Felisa Rincón Muse­um come pre­pared to spend a cou­ple of hours if you real­ly want to see the place. Like I said at the begin­ning of this post: there just aren’t politi­cians like “Doña Fela” anymore.

“Doña Fela’s” bed­room. Click image to see it larger.

The muse­um is open Mon­day thru Fri­day, from 9:00am to 4:00pm. Admis­sion is free but there is a dona­tions box right next to the case hold­ing the keys to the cities.

And final­ly, they’re also on the net. The muse­um’s web­site is http://www.museofelisarincon.com. They are also on Face­book (https://www.facebook.com/museo.felisarincon) and on Twit­ter (@museofelisa).

And before I for­get, you’ll nev­er guess what Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er is most remem­bered for. She was the only major that brought real, hon­est to good­ness, snow to Puer­to Rico!!! And not once, but three times.

Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er, the major that brought snow to Old San Juan. Click on image to see it larger.

The sto­ry goes like this. “Doña Fela” was the clos­ing speak­er at a con­ven­tion in Flori­da. Sit­ting in the audi­ence was Eddie Rick­en­backer, the own­er of East­ern Air Lines. Rick­en­backer was so impressed with “Doña Fela” that he insist­ed in hon­or­ing here with some kind of present.

But “Doña Fela” said that she could­n’t accept it. Rick­en­backer insist­ed. So “Doña Fela” came up with the fol­low­ing idea. She said to Rick­en­backer: “by hon­or­ing my peo­ple you’ll be hon­or­ing me. So, since you are the own­er of East­ern Air Lines, send a plane­load of snow to San Juan dur­ing Christ­mas season”.

And he did!!! The event was so suc­cess­ful that Rick­en­backer did it three years in a row. So that’s how “Doña Fela” became the only may­or in Puer­to Rican his­to­ry to bring snow to the Island.

“Doña Fela” not only broght the snow, but she helped spread it at Luis Muñoz Rivera Park. Click on image to see it larger.

And the kids? Well, let’s just say that they had the time of their lives play­ing in the snow! Albeit, only for a while.

Like always, I’m includ­ing a Google Map below to help you find the place, but the fact is that you can’t miss it. It’s the pink build­ing, on your left hand side, right after you enter through San Juan Gate.

‘Till next time, enjoy Puer­to Rico.

©2014,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590

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